Many Mid-Missouri voters will vote in new congressional districts on Tuesday

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Voters in Boone County are having to navigate an updated congressional map following state redistricting that shuffled the districts that cover Central Missouri.

Under the revised congressional map, Boone County is now split between Missouri's Third and Fifth Congressional Districts. Under the previous map put in place after the 2020 census, the county was divided between the Third and Fourth.

That map changed when the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly approved a new, GOP-friendly map during a special session last summer.

Despite the shift in districts, Charles Zug, a political science professor at the University of Missouri, said the dynamics for local voters are unlikely to see a dramatic change.

"The consequences of that in terms of electoral politics I don't think will be significant because all of those districts now, the Fifth and the Third, they're still Republican districts," Zug said.

Zug explained that the redrawing of boundaries reflects a redistricting strategy called "cracking" and "packing."

"Cracking" involves dividing a concentrated group of voters across multiple districts to dilute their collective voting share of a party, while "packing" consolidates voters into a single district.

"The state legislature in Missouri has done both of those for this. It's packed as much possible Democratic vote into the single St. Louis congressional district. That's still going to go Democratic, it sort of consolidated all that," Zug said. "Also cracking the influence of Democrats in counties like ... Boone, for example."

Expanding District Five, which is currently Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's district, into a much larger geographic area that includes parts rural Missouri and Boone County is what Zug refers to as cracking District Five. This expansion of District Five created wider Republican-leaning margins.

"The old Fifth District used to be a blue district," Zug said. "State legislature cracked that district, basically took that concentration of Democratic voters and spread them out over the course of three newly drawn districts Six, Five and Four."

As a result of these changes, voters in the northwestern region of Boone County now share a new congressional district with parts of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Any representative elected to the Fifth District will have to balance competing priorities of a major urban center along with the smaller rural communities, according to Zug.

The redrawn lines present another hurdle: voter awareness.

There are no statewide agencies required to send boundary line updates directly to voters' homes, Zug said. Unless residents are actively staying up to date with state election databases or mailings from their county clerk, they may not realize their congressional districts have shifted until they receive a ballot or arrive at the polls.

Zug said that in the northwestern part of Boone County, where the district lines might be harder to find, it might not be clear which district you are in. Map boundaries rely on precise residential street addresses rather than just a broad ZIP code.

"Some voters don't even pay attention to that. Right. They're just like, 'oh, here's my ballot vote and don't pay attention to what district I'm in,'" said Zug. "But other voters, you know, if you're aware that you are in the Third District last time and, you know, suddenly it says the Fifth District, you might be aware of that."

ACB 17 asked residents in downtown Columbia to see if they are aware of which district they will be voting in for the upcoming August primary election. The responses varied in knowledge.

"I do not, I just know where to vote," said Linda Martin, a resident of Columbia.

Other residents who did not want to be on camera said they were not aware that there were separate U.S. House districts.

"I have no idea, no idea what district I'm voting in," said Ashton Conner, resident of Columbia.

One resident, Marsha Hamby, said she was aware of her district because she had to renew her voting registration form.

"Yes, I'm District Four," said Hamby. "We had just moved, so I had to find out by renewing my voting registration form so I would know which district to vote in."